The living wage is the hourly rate of pay calculated independently to be the minimum that a worker needs to earn to cover the basic costs of living. An employer may choose to pay it, but has no statutory obligation to do so at the moment.
In the Summer Budget on 8 July 2015, the Government announced that a new compulsory national living wage will be introduced in April 2016. It is this wage you are referring to and it means the new wage will be paid to workers aged 25 and above. Initially, it will be set at £7.20 an hour, with a target of it reaching more than £9 an hour by 2020. Part-time and full-time workers also qualify for this.
This means that in April 2016, you will need to pay employees a minimum of £7.20 per hour if they are 25 and over. The current national minimum wage that you already comply with will continue for workers under 25 but some employers are choosing to pay this to all employees.
Whether it’s questions about the Living Wage or holiday pay or benchmarking salaries, we have a whole host of information about pay on our blog.